NCJ Number
236931
Journal
Journal of Criminal Justice Volume: 39 Issue: 6 Dated: November/December 2011 Pages: 489-498
Date Published
December 2011
Length
10 pages
Annotation
Although the existing literature confirms that procedural justice and police legitimacy are important factors in determining people's willingness to cooperate with police officers and obey the law, this study seeks to fill a gap in the literature by testing the assumptions of convergent validity within and discriminant validity between procedural justice and police legitimacy.
Abstract
Research shows that the way police officers treat people during law-enforcement interactions influences how the individuals will feel about themselves, the police, and their willingness to obey the law in the future. Abusive verbal and emotional treatment by police diminishes the self-esteem of the individual being confronted and makes them feel worthless as a member of society. In contrast, when individuals feel that they have social merit and can contribute to their own safety and the safety of others by obeying the law, they are more likely to perceive the value of police officers and be motivated to cooperate with them in contributing to a safe society. The current study attempts to open a dialog regarding the psychometric properties of these constructs. The findings of the current study, in contrast to previous studies, suggest that procedural justice contains the quality of treatment by police, the quality of police decisionmaking in enforcing the law, and trust. The obligation to obey the law and police commands operates in isolation from these factors; however, procedural justice predicted perceived obligation to obey, and obligation to obey was significantly and positively related to cooperation and compliance. The author urges that researchers examine the theoretical and empirical development of procedural justice and police legitimacy in order to further the study of the normative model of policing. 8 tables, 5 notes, and 57 references